Erect shrubs to 3 m tall, with 1-few stems, slender, sparingly branched, ferruginous-hairy on axes and especially on abaxial leaf surfaces (with 30-80 hairs per mm²). Adult leaves elliptic to obovate-elliptic or narrowly so, 6-24 cm long, 2-8 cm wide; margins serrate in apical half, with 3-11 teeth extending to basal halves, ±abruptly contracted to petiole, very coriaceous and harsh to the touch; apices acute to truncate; veins prominently raised; surfaces minutely granulate when dried. Intermediate leaves pinnatisect to pinnatifid. Conflorescences few, very broadly to depressed-ovoid, 100-180-flowered, 6-8.5 cm diam. (excluding bracts); anthesis acropetal; involucral bracts conspicuous, mostly 30-75 mm long, bright red, glabrous except tips. Flowers usually scarlet; pedicels 3-27 mm long; tepals 20-30 mm long, cohering along margins in a slit tube; style incurved. Body of follicle 7-11 cm long.
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